Isolationism Quotes

The evangelical with his "minority complex" often forgets that he is part of a massive historical movement much larger than his own kind of church. Catholic and Protestant thought of various sorts, and Eastern Orthodoxy, can all be of help, for they share with him the basics of Biblical theism. The evangelical tends to see himself today standing alone, he supposes that nobody ever faced such issues as he now faces, and he therefore thinks in a vacuum. ~ Arthur F. Holmes

I used to believe authenticity could be achieved solely by describing, in our own words, one's own fragment of experience. This was of course predicated on the complete intellectual and aesthetic independence of the "I". One eventually realizes such intellectual isolationism promotes style, ego, awards. But not change. ~ Miguel Syjuco

The consensus that had sustained our postwar foreign policy had evaporated. The men and women who had sustained our international commitments and achievements were demoralized by what they considered their failure in Vietnam. Too many of our young were in rebellion against the successes of their fathers, attacking what they claimed to be the overextension of our commitments and mocking the values that had animated the achievements. A new isolationism was growing. Whereas in the 1920s we had withdrawn from the world because we thought we were too good for it, the insidious theme of the late 1960s was that we should withdraw from the world because we were too evil for it. Not ~ Henry Kissinger

One real meeting is much better than a thousand internet or social media words. ~ Stephen Richards

At the very moment that humans discovered the scale of the universe and found that their most unconstrained fancies were in fact dwarfed by the true dimensions of even the Milky Way Galaxy, they took steps that ensured that their descendants would be unable to see the stars at all. For a million years humans had grown up with a personal daily knowledge of the vault of heaven. In the last few thousand years they began building and emigrating to the cities. In the last few decades, a major fraction of the human population has abandoned a rustic way of life. As technology developed and the cities were polluted, the nights became starless. New generations grew to maturity wholly ignorant of the sky that had transfixed their ancestors and that had stimulated the modern age of science and technology. Without even noticing, just as astronomy entered a golden age most people cut themselves off from the sky, a cosmic isolationism that ended only with the dawn of space exploration. ~ Carl Sagan

America ... goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. ~ John Quincy Adams

Kneejerk interventionism or kneejerk isolationism is the wrong course for Britain. ~ Douglas Alexander

I respect those who say that the United States should simply withdraw from the Middle East, but I don't respect them for anything but their honesty. ~ Christopher Hitchens

There's a sense of entitlement and isolationism that I think is really dangerous, and the way globalization and technology have been used isn't really for the best. ~ Rashida Jones

America is like an isolated information island. A lot of what happens in the rest of the world, a lot of the cultural exchange, never makes it to rural Alabama. ~ Oliver Markus Malloy

It's all very well for us to sit here in the west with our high incomes and cushy lives, and say it's immoral to violate the sovereignty of another state. But if the effect of that is to bring people in that country economic and political freedom, to raise their standard of living, to increase their life expectancy, then don't rule it out. ~ Niall Ferguson

Even if we never reach the stars by our own efforts, in the millions of years that lie ahead it is almost certain that the stars will come to us. Isolationism is neither a practical policy on the national or cosmic scale. And when the first contact with the outer universe is made, one would like to think that Mankind played an active and not merely a passive role-that we were the discoverers, not the discovered. ~ Arthur C. Clarke

In the time just before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, when Perfidia opens, we were pre-psychologized. There were no concepts of identity, no politics of victimization. Reparation wasn't in the language. Nobody thought about giving the great grandchildren of black slaves so much as $1.98. And all of a sudden the bombs hit, interventionism versus isolationism became a dead issue, and it was us-versus-them in a heartbeat. ~ James Ellroy

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars: It is better to be here [in Europe] ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. ~ Ronald Reagan

Somewhere along the line the American love affair with wilderness changed from the thoughtful, sensitive isolationism of Thoreau to the bully, manly, outdoorsman bravado of Teddy Roosevelt. It is not for me, as an outsider, either to bemoan or celebrate this fact, only to observe it. Deep in the male American psyche is a love affair with the backwoods, log-cabin, camping-out life.

There is no living creature here that cannot, in its right season, be hunted or trapped. Deer, moose, bear, squirrel, partridge, beaver, otter, possum, raccoon, you name it, there's someone killing one right now. When I say hunted, I mean, of course, shot at with a high-velocity rifle. I have no particular brief for killing animals with dogs or falcons, but when I hear the word 'hunt' I think of something more than a man in a forage cap and tartan shirt armed with a powerful carbine. In America it is different. Hunting means 'man bonding with man, man bonding with son, man bonding with pickup truck, man bonding with wood cabin, man bonding with rifle, man bonding above all with plaid'. ~ Stephen Fry

Gov. Christie says 'New Jersey First.' State-based Isolationism! ~ Jonah Goldberg

Contrasting British servicemen and women with the appeasers, it is hard not to laugh. Are these two sides even the same species, let alone the same nationality? On one hand the selflessness and internationalism of the soldiers; on the other the Whites-First isolationism of the protesters. Excuse me, who are the idealists here? ~ Julie Burchill

It seems a lot of Christians are quick to condemn the world and write its inhabitants off as lost causes. It's odd, though, Jesus never did. He healed and lovingly confronted. Jesus engaged and walked among his enemies, not to breathe fire upon them, but to breathe life into them. He could only change their lives through being part of their lives. He didn't write books, he didn't constrain his preaching to just the synagogues. He didn't stand aloof bad mouthing the world and his enemies to his disciples in the safety of an insular compound. No, Jesus deliberately walked and lived amongst those he came to serve. ~ Katherine J. Walden

I think a Donald Trump presidency raises a new kind of version of conservatism which more closely resembles a kind of Father Coughlin, America first populism and nativism and isolationism, than the confident, modern, cosmopolitan, thoughtful, engaged conservatism of Ronald Reagan and Paul Ryan. ~ Bret Stephens

Perfectionism, no less than isolationism or imperialism or power politics, may obstruct the paths to international peace. Let us not forget that the retreat to isolationism a quarter of a century ago was started not by a direct attack against international cooperation but against the alleged imperfections of the peace. ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Our view is that economic isolationism is the wrong way to go. Vibrant, successful growing economies that advance the interests of their citizens engage the global economy. And, we're committed to engaging the global economy. ~ John W. Snow

Jeffersonian isolationism expressed an essentially cosmopolitan spirit. The Jeffersonian was determined - even at the expense of separating himself from the rest of the globe, and even though he be charged with provincial selfishness - to preserve America as an uncontaminated laboratory. ~ Daniel J. Boorstin

Isolation is the sum total of wretchedness to a man. ~ Thomas Carlyle

I think a policy of isolationism toward Cuba is misplaced and hasn't worked. ~ Rand Paul

I'm not surprised that Governor Dean would oppose [the $87 billion to fund Iraq reconstruction] ... I've lost confidence that he has any understanding of the national security responsibilities of a President ... [b]ecause I don't believe that he has any understanding of the international role that the United States has to play in the world. I think it's a kind of a pseudo-isolationism that appeals to the base of the caucus voters. I do not believe that particularly in the case of Iraq that Governor Dean has any fundamental understanding of what's at stake here. ~ John McCain

If our Founding Fathers wanted us to care about the rest of the world, they wouldn't have declared their independence from it. ~ Stephen Colbert

There's nothing wrong with being a cop. There's nothing wrong with being a white person. It's about where your heart is ... We've got to get everyone beyond the xenophobic isolationism. ~ Bobby Seale

Interventionism is inextricable from the American idea. If the United States retreats into isolationism, it ceases to be itself ? a nation dedicated, however much it falls short, to a universalist ideal of freedom. ~ Roger Cohen